Let the handicap start tumbling!!

Greetings fellow forum goers,

 Just a quick first post to get me underway.  Just joined the site and it looks really impressive.  I've been playing for a few years now but only VERY occasionally so now I'm looking to play a lot more and actually get a handicap (cards will be posted on this site obviously) and hopefully get it tumbling in the right direction!

 I'm joining a local club where my friend is the pro so hopefully a few tips from him and some more regular practice/play should guide me well.  It's only a 9 hole course but is very tidy and a good challenge.  It's really my short game that could do with the most improvement so should serve me well.

I will try and post a video of my swing at some stage for some of your "wise" comments & tips (I'm also good at taking and giving banter so will not get easily offended!!)

In the meantime take it easy, it's Friday which hopefully means some golfing action over the next few days for most of us!!

Cheers, Jim

Welcome, Jim, hope you enjoy yourself back playing this wonderul game more frequently.

Thanks John, good of you to reply.  Funnily enough I had earlier been chuckling at some other posts from yourself - and I promise not to take offence if you call ME a "bandit" at any stage.  Hopefully just some steady progress with maybe the odd sizzling shot or round thrown in to keep the interest going and to compensate for the inevitible duffs and lost balls along the way!!

My first goal is just to start hitting the ball cleanly more consistently and iron out those annoying duffs from 50 yards inwards.  Practice... practice... practice!

Ha!! Excellent - So do many of mine, unfortunately shooting off to the right rather than anywhere near target!!

However having looked at some of the video help from this site there have been a few obvious tips that I wasn't doing (keeping weight on left side, opening clubface, keeping hands in front of ball).  I will putting these into practice tomorrow and hopefully see some improvement!

Any other tips gratefully received.....

I would consider 50 yds a good drive, not a duff.

Jim, don't take any notice of anything I may say on this forum, I have a habit of getting the words in the wrong order and my meaning then becomes misconstrued. I love to see everyone play this game well, yes, even Pat from Northern ireland.

Afternoon all,

Hope those competing in the Southern Cup today are having fun - only found this site just over a week ago so unfortunately was too late for me to get the time off.  I look forward to hopefully joining in next time.

Anyway a very quick update, played at the weekend (see my latest round if you can access it?) a very patchy start losing a ball on each of the first 3 holes (!) but I hit some excellent form on the back 9 - not sure where that came from.  Back 9 Par 30 and I did it in 36 - scary!!  If you can see the card you will see it's a very short course but there is still trouble to be found so I was obviously doing something right!

So now I've posted 3 cards on the site it's judged my handicap to be 23.3 which I'm just wondering if I'll struggle on that when I play larger longer courses - or should it all be relative anyway??

I'm looking forward to trying to keep the good run going though - bring it on!!!!